""Integrated Asset Services"":http://www.iasreo.com (IAS) is reporting a modest second quarter price gain for the U.S. housing market.
[IMAGE]The Denver-based valuation company's latest ""IAS360 House Price Index"":http://www.iasreo.com/ias360.html shows a 1.1 percent increase nationally for the three-month period ending in June. With the slight advance, the IAS360 is now down just 16.7 percent from its high-water mark hit during the first quarter of 2007. As of the end of June, IAS' home price benchmark stood near its second-quarter 2004 level.
Upon first glance at the ""IAS360 breakdown"":http://www.iasreo.com/ias360.html, the eye is swimming in a sea of red â€" that shade of red that goes hand-in-hand with negative signs and downward trending arrows. But narrow your focus to the shorter-term comparables of second-quarter 2010 vs. first-quarter 2010, and the predominant color scheme shifts to green.
[COLUMN_BREAK]Second-quarter 2010 gains, however modest, were nationwide, with all four census regions and all nine census divisions reporting positive numbers. The Midwest, the Northeast, and the South regions all reported moves in line with the national number, while the West, consistent with its outsized weakness since the housing market peaked three years ago, gained just 0.2 percent.
""I have to be impressed that the housing market, at least at the broad level, appears to have responded well to the government's homebuyer tax credits,"" said Ryan Tomazin, president of Integrated Asset Services. ""But down at the neighborhood level, I'm not so sure we've done anything but aggravate the foreclosure influences downstream.""
Despite the fact that most of the nation's major metropolitan areas turned in respectable gains for the quarter (Las Vegas and Miami the notable exceptions), IAS says the country's hardest-hit counties are continuing to struggle. Some, including California's San Joaquin County and Florida's Lee County, remain more than 50 percent below their first quarter 2007 levels.
Tomazin says that even with the April tax credit and the arrival of the springtime buying season giving at least a short term lift to prices, his company’s neighborhood trend lines indicate that house prices around the nation are still looking for a bottom.
""I'm concerned the growing number of foreclosed houses and high unemployment will keep the housing market under pressure for the foreseeable future,"" Tomazin said.